


Seculo Seculorum

by orphan_account



Series: Mutatis Mutandis [4]
Category: Gravity Falls
Genre: Alternate Universe - Human, Body Dysphoria, Genderfluid Character, M/M, Neurodiversity, Non-Linear Narrative, Pegging, Racism, Sexual Content, Topping from the Bottom, Trans Dipper Pines
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-10-05
Updated: 2016-01-08
Packaged: 2018-04-25 00:53:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 10,294
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4940398
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They did everything in the wrong order. They loved first, and knew each other second. First they left each other, and then they came back together. What is the end, if it didn't begin with a start? What do they have when they've given up everything they were before?</p><p>The past becomes the future, and they can't run from it - only towards it.</p><p><i>seculo seculorum</i> - lat. forever and ever</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Praeludium

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> PS: A clue for a clue. The title is key.
> 
> LMOY XOQ QGHO OEX FAQG GLM ZICF  
> MIK HALLKHR ZAKJN NOEHAL VGPPOD  
> VGUO VVLQ UPQMPZQ EPX JCL QUDP UYP  
> VGA VBP RIYMEQCEPF ZEU WZAV NA TI

ENTER PASSCODE:

_ isosceles123 _

ACCESS GRANTED

**Inbox:**

July 25th: _Found their escape route. Following._ ▲

August 3rd: _Konnichiwa. I hope they choke on fish._ ▲

August 10th: _Check CNN. Do I look good? I know I do._ ▲

August 12th: _I hate alligators. Seriously._ ▲

August 19th: _Why can’t they use the internet like normal people?_ ▲

August 21st: _Shots fired. Burn in hell, bitch._ ▲

August 23th: _For Christmas I want ammo. Lots of ammo. Thx._ ▲

September 5th: _Missed your b-day, belated well-wishes. No present yet._ ▲

September 16th: _Veni vidi vici, motherfucker._ ▲

September 17th: _The matter is taken care of._ ▲

**Outbox:**

November 6th: _R u ok?_

**Unread message(s): 1**

December 2nd: _Got you a present._ ▲

▲▼▲


	2. Observatio

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Same key, same clue.
> 
> LLKM TG LLG NLZV IR ZSY BP PWGCGP HYY PJICGXOCIT.

▲▼▲

Dipper lay on his side, eyes wide open despite the late – or rather early – hour. The rain was quietly tap-dancing on the window, throwing interesting shadows in the weak, bluish moonlight that cast Bill’s face in black and azure. He watched the slow rise and fall of Bill’s chest, calm in sleep. Dipper realized he’d never seen his lover this deceivingly soft. He felt as if he could touch his smooth skin and it would ripple like water. Or maybe it would be hard as stone, unyielding and cool. Maybe that was more likely, as his profile inexplicably reminded Dipper of the unforgiving beauty of Nefertiti. Stark, proud. Eternal.

When he’d come home – when he’d come back to Dipper a month ago he’d been covered in bruises, bandaged like a mummy, and near exhaustion. Malnourished, and his beautiful hair burned away. And still, when Dipper opened the door there was that broad, sharp-white grin, too toothy to be comforting.

He looked healthier now. His cheekbones didn’t threaten to pierce through too dry, sunburned skin. His lips weren’t so chapped anymore, and the dark circles under his eyes had melted into their natural brown. Dipper gently traced his thumb over the back of Bill’s hand, still feeling the protruding veins and sinews there, but it no longer felt like cradling a mere handful of bird’s bones.

He’d always marveled at the strength in those small, fragile-looking fingers. Dipper had seen them crush bones, pull triggers, stab at vulnerable flesh. As with Bill’s entire body, they seemed too gentle to belong to a person so violent and ruthless. Remorseless.

“You wouldn’t condemn a soldier who went to fight in a war and killed his enemies without remorse,” Bill had said one evening as he watched Dipper undress.

Dipper paused, crumpling his pajama top in his hands.

“Depends,” he replied after a while and turned around to look at Bill perched on their bed. Their bed.

“On what? Where the orders came from?”

“I don’t know. It just depends.”

He pulled on the shirt and went to sit beside Bill, knees drawn up to hide his chest.

“Do you regret killing?” he asked him then.

“Regret? No.” Bill shook his head, and it looked wrong without wild curls bouncing around his face. “Remorse? No. Guilt? No.”

“Don’t you feel anything?” Dipper whispered, eyes wide. He feared Bill’s answer. What would it mean if he said- …?

“There is sympathy, there is empathy, and there is compassion. I know how they feel, but I don’t feel what they feel, and I don’t regret making them feel … fear, and anger. I know fear and anger. I’d have to be dead not to,” Bill answered, and Dipper still didn’t know what it meant.

He thought for a while, and Bill let him, waiting.

“What about love?”

Bill took a deep breath and held it for a few seconds. He turned his head away, looking at his pillow.

“There are two people in this world I’d die for. Is that love?” He turned back again, his golden eye eerily bright, and his black eye almost invisible in the shadow cast by his brow. “If I want to belong to you completely, be consumed by you and be destroyed in your wake … If I felt terror when I held my daughter for the first time, knowing I could kill her so easily … Is that love?”

“I don’t know,” Dipper breathed, his heart pounding loudly in his ears.

“What is love to you?”

“I don’t- …”

“Isn’t it obsession?” Bill’s eyes drifted away again, falling on the sight of his fingers clutching the bed covers so tightly they bunched up. “Terror and greed. So much greed, greed for self-destruction, lust and spiritual gluttony. It transforms, but first it must destroy. Consume. Empty the world of everything but the one you love. And then it destroys him too.”

Shivering, Dipper remembered the fire he’d seen in Bill’s eyes that night. He’d asked himself many times if what he felt for Bill was love. If Bill loved him. If they felt the same thing, and whether they were doomed to end up damaged if they tried to …

Bill shifted in his sleep, and his breathing deepened. His lashes cast trembling shadows on the arches of his cheekbones, and Dipper watched, mesmerized.

“You think too loudly,” Bill murmured.

“Sorry.”

Bill’s body tensed for a second, and then he smoothly rolled around so he lay on top of Dipper. They both hissed softly at the sudden sensation of skin on skin, and the scorching warmth building around them, captured by the bed covers.

“You’re heavy,” Dipper groaned, head craned awkwardly in an attempt to avoid Bill’s intense gaze. Only when most of his weight was gone, only leaving the teasing brush of knees and hips, Dipper dared to look. Which, in retrospect, was his error. Or not.

Bill leaned down to capture his lips in a smooth kiss, all moving lips and stroking tongue. It made Dipper shiver in anticipation and sensory memory. God, that tongue.

“What do you want?” Bill whispered.

“Just …” Dipper put a hand on Bill’s cheek, tracing his thumb along the lush line of his lips. Before he could say anything more, his t-shirt was hitched up, and Bill dove beneath the covers to suck indulgent kisses into the soft skin around Dipper’s bellybutton. Gasping, he squirmed, feeling himself flush.

Dipper shuddered when his boxers were pulled off, and clever fingers brushed against the vulnerable flesh between his thighs, parting it to reveal the slick evidence of Dipper’s need. At Bill’s questioning look he nodded, throwing back his head with a groan when hot breath preceded the flat of Bill’s tongue.

Something about the almost-submissiveness Bill displayed in bed had been surprising to Dipper at first. He always asked, waited for Dipper to tell him what to do, asked for permission, pushed the boundaries, but never broke them. His strokes and licks were precise, knowing, but not smug and controlling like he would have expected it. He only sped up when Dipper cupped his jaw, and he pulled away when he was beckoned.

“I want …”

Bill hummed and nuzzled the bend of Dipper’s hip where his thigh joined his hip.

“Tell me,” he whispered, crawling up to bring his face level to Dipper’s, one eye bright, one dark. He was hard and pressed up against Dipper’s inner thigh, but there was nothing hurried or urgent in the way he moved.

Dipper tilted his head and breathed a kiss to the wrist propped up beside his head. There was a small scar above the pulse point, straight and precise. He tore his eyes from it and arched his spine to wrap his legs around Bill’s hips, teasing the length of his back with his knees and calves.

Bill always asked in words. Dipper answered in another language, but it didn’t matter to them. They understood. If either of them screamed, the other would know. If either of them breathed, the other would feel.

It was Dipper who flipped them so he was straddling Bill, throwing the covers off so he could look at all the other scars. Two bullet wounds, a dog bite, countless scratches and lacerations, a handful of burns. Dipper ran his hand over the skin pulled taut over bone and muscle as he joined them. He was surrounding Bill, and he held him, contained him. Their eyes never disconnected as they rose and fell, like breathing. Natural. Rising, rising, as the world fell away, leaving, for Dipper, only gold and black, awash with gentle blue. He didn’t know what Bill saw, but that didn’t matter.

He leaned his forehead against Bill’s, tracing the sharp, yet inexplicably soft edges of his brow and nose and cheek and jaw and moth with his own. Dipper felt Bill’s hands digging into his hips, but they were not demanding. He dropped his head to Bill’s shoulder, breathing in the hot air tasting of fire. This mystery, this powerful man, yielding to him. Letting himself be contained. How little his own pleasure meant to Bill – how much Dipper’s meant instead.

One of Bill’s hands had dropped, tracing the path where his tongue had been, and leaving a trail of sparks in its wake. Dipper felt his breath hitch. A trembling moan escaped him on every breath, and he felt the conflicting sensation of being grounded in his body and Bill’s while feeling like he was going to fly apart at the seams any moment.

One moment he was chasing the impression of flight, urgency making his movements erratic, and the next he was falling instead. He felt Bill gasp, his ribcage expanding under Dipper’s palms, and his hips surge up to meet Dipper on a downstroke as he came as well.

He only noticed that he’d closed his eyes when he felt a gentle thumb trace his brow, trailing down until it settled on Dipper’s lower lip. Bill said nothing when he kissed it.

They rearranged themselves until they both lay on their sides, legs and arms entangled as they were facing each other. The blue tint of the moon had gained a rosy blush, and by the time their breaths had synchronized the tips of the pine trees outside the window were awash with red.

“With you I can sleep,” Bill whispered, almost too quiet for Dipper to hear, who had started to doze off again.

“Mmh?”

“I am … calm with you. That demon inside is quiet, like you are the eye of the storm.”

When Bill closed his eyes and said nothing else, Dipper rolled onto his back and pondered over those words.

▲▼▲

While Dipper’s appreciation for Bill’s overall physical attractiveness was only a somewhat more recent development, he’d always … noticed the strong, lean lines of his former senior agent’s back. The first time they met Bill stood with his back to Dipper, arms folded behind him, hands gripping the opposite elbows. The standard black suit hadn’t done anything to hide the feline-like grace and power the narrow frame contained, and by the time Bill had beaten Dipper in hand-to-hand combat for the thousandth time he wanted nothing more than to see that back connect with the floor.

He’d almost forgotten how fascinating the shift of muscles, spine and shoulder blades was, when Bill returned after his hunt, hurt and exhausted to the bones. Mabel helped him treat his wounds, and they made slow progress, when Dipper saw a large gash on Bill’s back – a near-miss that could easily have injured his spine had it been a few inches to the left. As he carefully disinfected it and prepared it for stitching – which, thankfully, was Mabel’s task – he noticed the ridges of ribs, and the way Bill’s shoulder blades stuck out obscenely. It took all his self-restraint not to put a hand on the torn skin and weep.

A week later he caught Bill in the basement slash training room, despite orders to take it easy and rest. Sitting on the stairs he watched Bill go through smooth stretching motions. He was wearing nothing but a black tank top and a pair of Dipper’s old sweatpants, and though he hesitated every few seconds, hissing against the pain, to Dipper it was a sight as beautiful as any sunrise. He realized then that it wasn’t Bill’s body he liked to watch – but Bill himself, in movement, strong and proud. Be it the gentle rise and fall as he breathed in his sleep or his efficient, ruthless jabs, punches and kicks as he fought.

They spoke about this once, after Bill had asked Dipper to join him in a sparring match. Of course, as Dipper hadn’t trained in months, Bill went on to thoroughly beat him in every discipline.

“You don’t care,” Dipper blurted out as he waited for Bill to finish bandage his hands. He’d nearly broken or at least dislodged a finger during their last bout.

“Hmm?”

“About your body. It’s …”

“It’s a tool,” Bill said before Dipper could think of the right word. “A vessel, a weapon to be wielded. I care about it as you would care about your gun – if you still had it.”

The raised eyebrow and mockingly turned up lip made Dipper laugh, and he forgot about it again in the flurry of punches, parries and counters.

Later, in the shower, as he traced the long scar along Bill’s spine under the rivulets of water, he frowned and wondered.

“If your body is your weapon … What wields it? Your heart? Your mind?”

“I am a king, and my body is my crown. My mind is my throne, and my dreams are my kingdom,” Bill murmured against Dipper’s cheek, a reverent tone to his voice as if he were praying or repeating a mantra.

“And what am I?”

“The god by whose grace I rule.”

Dipper shuddered, suddenly feeling the weight and warmth of Bill in his arms that much more. He was literally handing his life, mind and body over to Dipper, trusting him to take care of him. But it was also the other way around – if Bill called him his god, well, a god didn’t exist without his worshippers. And the way Bill caressed him and kissed him could only be called self-deferential reverence. One word from Dipper, and he’d kneel. This far, he knew, Bill would go. But where was the limit? Would he kill for Dipper? Would he really die for Dipper?

Either way, his body control far exceeded anything Dipper had ever seen. He could ignore the excruciating pain of a dislodged arm, and he merely frowned when coming into contact with the scalding hot pipes in Soos’ former-former break room while fixing the fuses. And he could, apparently, move his limbs as independently as a chameleon could move its eyes.

“I’m never going to play twister with you ever again!” Dipper cried indignantly as he lay on the floor, while Bill still hovered above him in an impossible position. In a corset and pleather leggings.

“What the?” Grunkle Stan barked out as he stepped into the living room. “I don’t even wanna know,” he sighed and walked out again.

But Bill was only flexible in a physical sense. His ideology and thought-patterns not so much. While watching him argue with Samuel Pines, nephew of Grunkle Stan and father of Dipper and Mabel, was fascinating on an intellectual level, it was also like watching a train wreck. In slow motion. While bound to the train tracks.

It had started as a discussion of Christmas, Christianity in general, and the cardinal sins and virtues especially. With Samuel Pines, non-practicing Jew, loving father and husband, and upstanding citizen on one hand; and Bill Cipher – to Dipper’s parents he was Bill Mthethwa, and decidedly _not_ Dipper’s former FBI partner – anarchist, agnostic and former-maybe-again criminal slash terrorist on the other … Well, it was how it sounded like, and Dipper really feared his father was going to throw Bill into the Bottomless Pit later.

“But they’re sins. Even if you don’t believe in a heaven or a hell, or even a life after, you must see that they’re _bad_.”

“Bad-shmad, it all depends on the dosage! Too much diligence, and wait, where did my life go? Too much charity, and guess what? Empty bank account! And don’t give me that ‘money can’t buy you happiness’ crap.”

“What about greed? Or wrath? You can’t possibly condone those!”

“Sometimes anger fuels you, drives you to heights you’d never have reached otherwise. And greed doesn’t translate into selfishness. The thing is: It’s not all material. Yeah, sure, I can be greedy and want more money or whatever.” Bill made a sweeping motion that nearly knocked Dipper’s hat off his head. “But I can also be greedy for more love and attention, when I’ve been starved of it before. _Because of chastity and temperance_.”

“So you’d never be kind to anyone? Never be humble or patient?”

“I’m not saying the cardinal virtues are shit, I’m just saying that the cardinal sins aren’t all bad either, Mr. Pines. But to answer your question: No, I wouldn’t be kind to just anyone. Not everyone deserves my best.”

“What about my son then?” Samuel asked and crossed his arms. Dipper flinched and met his father’s gaze, which softened when it fell on him.

“Dad- …,“ he tried to say, but Bill interrupted him with a hand on his knee.

“That’s the wrong question. He deserves my best, yes – but is my best good enough for him?”

Which managed to shut everyone in the room up, even Grunkle Stan, who had been slurping his beer like he would whenever he watched a fight, and Mabel looked like she’d gladly retreat to Sweater Town right now. Only Barbara, the twins’ mother, looked unfazed.

“Bill- …” Dipper whispered, squeezing his hand in return, but his father preempted him.

“Explain.”

“Well, it’s obvious isn’t it? I’m a no-good, low-life street thug orphan with a criminal record longer than Santa’s beard.” Bill tightened his fingers around Dipper’s knee and stared at Samuel challengingly. Dipper gulped at the eye-twitch on his father’s face. Not a good sign.

“My son is old enough to decide who he dates himself,” Samuel said carefully.

“But in your opinion … You’d agree, right? I don’t deserve him.”

Samuel pursed his lips and looked from Bill to Dipper, who tried to plead with him silently to stop.

“I don’t know you,” he said eventually and uncrossed his arms. “Maybe my son sees something in you neither of us can see. Maybe your cynicism hides the secret desire for a bit of optimism.”

Bill snorted at that, but Dipper felt his hand relax, which seemed to trigger a release of tension in the whole room. Mabel sighed loudly and went to retrieve some Mabel Juice for her nerves, though she shot all three of them sharp looks.

“Thanks for the vote of confidence, dad,” Dipper ground out between his teeth.

“What your father means to say,” came Barbara’s soft voice, shutting up her husband, and drawing all attention to herself, “is that we trust you, darling. You are an adult, and while we are your parents and we’ll always worry, in the end we don’t have any jurisdiction in your life anymore.”

Which was a strange thought, really. That he’d cut the cord somewhere along the years after he moved out from their house in Piedmont. It hadn’t been ‘home’ for a while, but his parents were still … his parents. He was their child, just like he was Mabel’s twin. It was a universal fact.

Lost in his thoughts he looked at Bill and blended out what went on around them. He wondered what it felt like not to belong to anyone like that. Well, maybe he felt that connection with his daughter, but they’d never really talked about her. Bill only mentioned her in passing, and Dipper knew he wanted to visit her again, but it was too dangerous, lest the FBI kept tabs on her and tried to catch Bill that way.

He drew out of his thoughts when he registered loud music, and apparently Mabel had returned not only with shots of Mabel Juice Alcoholic Edition, but also her new, portable amplifier.

“Cheer up and dance, Bill!” she demanded and dragged him off the sofa and away from Dipper. Chuckling, Bill allowed it, but Dipper didn’t envy him his situation. Mabel was playing some catchy Latino tune, and if there was anything Bill couldn’t resist, it was a fast-paced Salsa. Maybe it was his Costa Rican blood, but he danced a mean Merengue too, which was also a sure way to get _Dipper_ going. There was just no chance that he could keep his hands off those swaying hips, parents watching or no.

Bill seemed to know the song, since he was mouthing the lyrics, and Dipper had to concentrate not to stumble because he was watching the entrancing glimpses of tongue and teeth between fluent lips.

It was a different kind of power and agility than he displayed when he fought. It was no less smooth or controlled, but there was a seductive, conscious quality to his moves his punches and kicks lacked. The precision of his feet and the poised gestures his hands made were more deliberate, less action-and-reaction, as was the nature of a good sparring.

After the twins’ parents asked Mabel to turn down the volume a bit – Grunkle Stan hadn’t protested, he just removed his hearing aid – the magic of the rhythm soon dissolved, and they went back to sit on the couch. The only difference was that Dipper couldn’t keep his hands to himself, and they were out of breath. At least Dipper was. Bill’s ribcage barely expanded.

“You’re a dancer then?” Barbara asked politely.

“It’s how we met, actually,” Bill replied, grinning shark-like. Dipper stiffened. They hadn’t agreed on a story, since they’d decided to just evade their past and just not mention Bill had been Dipper’s FBI partner.

“Oh, really?”

“Yeah. I worked at that … uh, club. It was a bet, I think. Dipper’s friends dared him to ask me whether I was a boy or a girl.”

Mabel made a choked sound at that, and Dipper glared at her. She merely grinned and gave him a discreet thumbs-up.

“But why would they have been confused about that?” she asked carefully.

“I’m genderfluid, borderline agender, actually, though I hate announcing it like that. Even if you are both,” he nodded at Samuel, “clearly supportive of Dipper being trans, you might not have been as accepting of my – more obscure – identity.”

“Oh, no, we’d never …!”

“I didn’t mean to imply you would,” Bill said uncharacteristically softly when Barbara searched for words. She smiled softly at that, and folded her hands in her lap.

“So you are a dancer. I’m not an expert, but you seem to be very good at it.”

“Thank you, Mrs. Pines.”

“Call me Barbara,” she insisted.

“Then you must call me Bill.”

Which was how Bill ended up being on a first name basis with Dipper’s mother only. Which was weird. But then he supposed fathers always were particularly defensive of their children, and naturally wary of their chosen partners. Thankfully – or sadly, depending on how you looked at it or if you were Grunkle Stan, who loved fights – Pacifica wasn’t as difficult as Bill. She, interestingly, bonded with Samuel more than Barbara, and the two of them often had in-depth discussions about the politics and finances of handling a family business.

It warmed Dipper’s heart, seeing how happy Mabel seemed with Pacifica. Their relationship hadn’t changed much from before they got together, really, except that they exchanged kisses sometimes, or held hands, and some nights Dipper had to join Bill in the living room because Pacifica was staying over. Or at least he’d join him any time Mabel and Pacifica didn’t invite him into something ‘girls-only’. At least those nights gave Dipper a free pass to banish Mabel sometimes too, whenever Bill felt more … experimental.

“You know you’re the one with all the reins in his hands, right?” Bill asked one night, leaning against the closed door behind him after they’d ushered Mabel out. She’d only grinned and given them two thumbs up. “I’d never make you do anything you don’t want to.”

“Yeah, I know.” Frowning, Dipper sat cross-legged on the bed. “What is it?”

“Remember how I wrote you I’d gotten you a present?”

“Sure. Now I remember. You never gave me anything … Except, um, you are the present?”

Bill laughed and put his hands behind his head, invitingly curving his back against the door.

“No, but I belong to you anyway.”

“So what is it?” Dipper inquired after he got his brain to work again, and discreetly wiped his chin in case he had drool on it. Bill narrowed his eyes, freezing in a stance that showed off his narrow waist.

“Under the bed,” he breathed and straightened himself again.

“Okay?” Dipper laughed and leaned down to rummage under his bed. There were stacks of paper, and a few murder mystery novels, and also a lot of dust. He had to sneeze twice before his fingers brushed against a box. He grunted and dragged it out. “Huh?”

“It’s not what’s written on the box, I just had to put it somewhere,” Bill snorted and joined Dipper on the bed, winding his arms around his waist and shoulders. When Dipper started to pry the lid off, he put his hands on his. “Remember, I’d never make you do anything you don’t want to.”

“Now you’re making me nervous,” Dipper confessed, hesitating.

“It’s nothing bad, I just … Look.” He tugged the box out of Dipper’s hands and poked him until he turned around to face Bill. “It _is_ for you. Kind of. But it’s also for me, I won’t lie. Remember when we talked about kinks?”

“Bill- …”

“I need you to tell me what you want, and you need to be able to trust me to stop when you say ‘no’. I like being restrained, and you don’t want me to touch your chest. You know I don’t mind a bit of pain, in fact I like it a lot. But I also know you don’t like to hurt me.”

Dipper bit his lip and eyed the box.

“It’s not a … a whip or something, is it?”

Bill only tilted his head and watched him with glinting eyes.

“I also told you I know someone who owes me a favor. Someone who’d do a top surgery, no questions asked,” he said after a few moments.

“Um, yeah, but what- …”

“That’s why it’s for you,” Bill continued, making a small hand movement to silence Dipper. “Because we’re not always two men in bed, and sometimes I don’t want to top, either way.”

“But I can’t … you know.”

“Yes, you can. Open the box.”

Dipper carefully pulled off the lid, stared for a moment, and then fell back on the bed with a strangled noise.

“Too much?” Bill laughed and crawled over to loom over him.

“A dildo?” Dipper choked out. He felt his blush nearly burn his skin, and he was sure he was dying of mortification.

“No,” Bill said slowly and sat on Dipper’s legs. “Not a dildo. A strap-on.”

Dipper coughed and tried to pull his legs away, but Bill made himself heavy and refused to budge.

“I’m- … I mean, is … Do you …? Did you …?”

“I’m afraid I don’t know what you’re saying.”

“So you expect me to wear … that … and what?”

Bill shook his head, and Dipper missed the way his curls used to bounce with this gesture. Now they were barely long enough _to_ curl.

“I don’t expect you to do anything. However, I want you to have every opportunity at hand. Should _you_ decide that you want to try or do something.”

“Oh … ‘kay.” Dipper swallowed. “But … blue? Really?”

Bill laughed and rolled off of him, grinning like the cat that got the canary.

“It’s your color, _Pines_.”

Dipper shivered as he recalled a younger Bill calling a younger Dipper ‘Pine Tree’. They hadn’t started off on the right foot when they met at the academy that first time, before they knew they were going to be partners. Bill had been his usual abrasive self, and Dipper had been a snotty brat who tried to prove himself to everyone, everywhere. Of course that didn’t pull with Special Agent Cipher.

“I didn’t know it was Christmas!”

Dipper wiped the sweat off his forehead and turned around.

“Who’re you?” he panted and eyed the short, dark-skinned man standing a few feet away from him and staring at him suspiciously. He was wearing a simple suit-and-tie combination, and his hair was pulled back neatly into a bun at the nape of his neck. “You don’t look like a recruit, so let me rephrase: What are you doing here?”

“You’re Pines, right?” the man, Bill, asked, folded his arms behind his back and stepped forward, a broad, shark-like grin on his face. At this point, there were other recruits, who had been training with Dipper that stopped to watch the exchange. “Dipper Pines?”

“Yeah?”

“Good, good …” He hummed and gave Dipper an obvious once-over. “God, they get younger every time I come down here.”

“Okay, if you could just leave me alone please? I’m trying to work out here.”

Bill laughed shrilly and shook his head.

“It’s clearly not working, kid.”

Grinding his teeth, Dipper dropped the skipping rope he’d used before he’d been so rudely interrupted, and stepped closer to Bill.

“Tell me your name,” he demanded.

“Ooh, the kid’s got balls. Nice!” The grin on his face, impossibly, widened even more. “Just call me Special Agent Cipher.”

Dipper hesitated, realizing this was a senior agent in front of him.

“Well then, Mr. Special Agent Cipher,” he said, allowing only a faint trace of mockery to color his voice, “what can I help you with?”

“Business. Come with me.”

Without looking twice, Bill had turned around and walked away. Dipper had to hurry in order to catch up with his surprisingly fast pace, given his size. Well, not that Dipper was much taller. But still. Every inch counted.

“And why that comment about Christmas?” Dipper panted, longingly looking at door that led to the shower stalls.

“Pines, you were rooted to the floor, redder than Rudolph the Reindeer’s nose. Pine tree? Christmas?”

“I’m Jewish.” Kind of, anyway, but the other man didn’t need to know the details to that particular identity mess.

Bill gave him a look and grinned again.

“Good, I don’t like Christmas.”

If only they’d known then. Dipper sometimes wished to go back in time and tell his younger self to look, to really _look_. Like he liked to do. Just look at Bill. Watching him dance, or get dressed, or eat. Seeing the hundred different nuances in his eyes, when he was angry, or tired, or happy. Listening to him speaking dozens of languages, recite nursery rhymes and sing lullabies, or play clapping games with his daughter out on the porch of the Shack despite the cold or the heat.

Dipper sometimes wished he’d had more time, and wishing, he knew intimately how Bill felt when he said he’d die for Dipper.

“You’re mine”, he’d say. “I’d kill for you. I’d burn the world for you.”

And amidst the ashes of the incinerated structures that had been built by generations before them, Dipper still saw Bill, how he used to be, and what he’d become as Dipper shaped him, unknowingly. Was any other ending possible, with them both involved, other than utter destruction or ultimate triumph?

William, Special Agent, Bill Cipher, Manuela Ruiz, Bill Mthethwa, Bailey Chiffre, Dreammaker … The name, the face, the body didn’t matter. Dipper didn’t used to understand that, when it had been a thought that freed and empowered Bill so much. But now that there was no name left to say, no face left to smile, no body left to move and touch … Now he understood. It was a cold truth, but in that, at least, he could be sure Bill never lied to him.

▲▼▲

In Loving Memory

1994-2029

▲▼▲


	3. Fluctuatio

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Key and lock, look at the top.
> 
> OI OUJ HJC CM XITB MK AG QLBL  
> AG UWKRSE WRF OA OL XJY DHRLF

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Guys so sorry abt that fluke update ages ago, I only wanted to preview so it'd be saved here on the archive, and I must have mis-clicked so it posted. Don't be mad plz -.-
> 
> Anyway, who would have thought that strap-ons are a science? Applause please to my expert and beta, the wonderful Deer Mom! It's entirely my fault this chapter is so horribly late despite having written it months ago. Lots of struggling was involved.
> 
> Enjoy!

It was summer again, and Grunkle Stan, with whom old age slowly seemed to catch up to, had sent Dipper off to buy a month’s worth of soda and beer. It was almost too hot to even transfer the crates from the pick-up truck to the storage basement, and by the time he was finished, his hair under his hat uncomfortably stuck to his head, and his shirt was soaked. Panting and groggy he stumbled into the Shack, carrying a crate of fresh beer with him and sincerely wishing he could stay downstairs in the cool basement.

“He’s alive!” Mabel called when she spotted him trudge into the kitchen, and he groaned in relief when she bestowed upon him the grace of her green and glittery hand-ventilator.

Slowly regaining his faculties, he wondered where the clapping sounds were coming from, which he could hear over the low hum of the ventilator.

“What’s going on?” he asked, and Mabel’s grin fell a bit.

“Um, Bill’s playing some sort of game.”

“Yeah?”

He resisted the urge to stick his head in the refrigerator, and stumbled into the living room, where the clapping was coming from. But when he saw who Bill was with he froze on the spot.

Bill was sitting cross-legged on the floor despite the fact that this made the flower print dress he wore stretch taut over his lap. Opposite of him sat a young girl in a similar dress, her long, black curls nearly falling to the floor even though she sat straight-backed, in a manner that reminded Dipper so much of her father. Neither of them looked up from their clapping game, but Dipper could see that Bill had noticed him by the way his shoulders stiffened.

The game continued for a while, getting more and more complicated, though Dipper could never make sense of the rules. The girl – Evanescence, Dipper remembered – stoically kept her eyes on the toes of Bill’s left foot. Her claps never went astray, though she sometimes shook out her right hand, like she’d touched a spider or something slimy. It seemed random, but Bill was always prepared and didn’t break rhythm. Dipper quietly looked from the girl to Bill and back, biting his lip. The rhythm of the game lulled his thoughts, and, realizing he wasn’t going to be acknowledged anytime soon, he sat on the arm of the sofa to observe more comfortably. As he did so he entered Evanescence’s line of sight, and she lifted her eyes to stare at Dipper’s knee instead.

“Sawubona,” she said without missing a beat, and then went back to looking at Bill’s foot. Their palms met with a clap, and she shook out her hand afterwards.

“Um. Hello.”

“Evie, this is Dipper. I told you about him. He’s my friend,” Bill said slowly, his words almost matching the rhythm of their clapping.

“Friend,” she repeated, and her eyes flickered from Bill’s foot to Dipper’s knee and back.

“Yes. We’ll be staying with his family.”

Dipper made a protesting sound.

“She’s staying?” he asked.

“Family,” Evanescence said and shook out her hand.

“Just for the weekend,” Bill replied. “Then we’re going back to _umkhulu_ and _ugogo_. Isn’t that right?”

The girl didn’t answer, but dropped her hands. Dipper could see the fingers of her right hand twitch.

“You don’t like that?” Bill asked softly. “You want to go home earlier?”

“No.” She hesitated, grimacing. “No.”

“You want to stay longer?”

Her face softened, and her eyes quickly flickered up to look at her father’s face. Then she made a sound and flattened both her hands on the floor.

“Yes,” Bill laughed and stretched out his legs. “It’s a nice carpet, isn’t it? But I’m afraid we should go into the kitchen and get something to drink. Is that okay? We can come back afterwards.”

The girl nodded, and Dipper felt something constrict in his chest at the soft bounce of her curls at the gesture. His finger itched, wanting to reach out and touch, but the girl’s shoulders were stiff and uninviting, her gravity too much in Bill’s orbit to be approached. She curled her fingers into the fabric of Bill’s dress, neatly unfolding from her own cross-legged position, and together they went into the kitchen. When they came back, each was clutching a glass of soda.

“Thanks for restocking the fridge,” Bill said to Dipper and winked.

“Sure.”

“Friend,” Evanescence said suddenly, set her glass on the floor and flopped onto the sofa so her hair fanned out in all directions. Some of it landed in Dipper’s lap, and after giving Bill a questioning look, which he answered with a bright grin, he carefully touched it with one finger. They gave way, soft as down, and Dipper remembered the bounce of different curls. Eyes unfocused he looked at Bill and his own nearly shorn head, a testament of his hunt for Preston Northwest and Tad Strange.

“Tired, hm?” Bill hummed, gently grasped one of his daughter’s arched feet and sat on the other end of the sofa.

“Yes.”

Dipper sat quietly and moved as little as possible, but he held onto the beautifully curled lock of hair between his fingers as he watched Bill count Evie’s toes in a foreign language. Her hand twitched a few times, but eventually she calmed and relaxed. Her eyes were still wide open. Sitting this close he could see they were a warm brown, flecked with amber and green specks.

What a strange, beautiful child. Who would not love her?

Of course Dipper hadn’t counted on complete strangers.

It was maybe two months later, when apparently Evanescence insisted on wanting to see the town of Gravity Falls, even though Bill worried the unfamiliar environment might be too much for her. Still, they three of them plus Mabel and Wendy, who were on a supposed supply run, went into town. Maybe they’d go to the library and pick up some books for Evie, or something. Dipper had no idea what to do with a seven year old who behaved nothing like what he remembered of being seven, and what his limited experience with children her age taught him. She was quiet, and he wasn’t too sure she could actually speak much English. But she was also clearly very smart. The last time she visited the Shack she’d handed Dipper his Rubik’s cube back at least two dozen times, asking him to scramble it again. Well, the FBI file did say she had an aptitude towards mathematics and logical thinking. But when he asked her what her approach was, she just frowned and shook out her hand before grabbing the cube and twisting the parts until all the sides were right again.

Currently she clung to Bill as he carried her piggy-back, and hid her face against his neck. Maybe it _was_ too much for her. She seemed easily overwhelmed, like with questions that required an answer longer than two or three words, though she clearly had no problems stringing together logical thoughts to come to a conclusion. Just this morning she’d started calling Dipper ‘daddy’ out of the blue, and only a series of precise questions led him to realize she’d picked up on his relationship with her father – and any partner of her father’s was her father too, in her logic.

Just as they were about to part from Mabel and Wendy, having reached the library, a man started screaming profanities from the other side of the street at them. Something about ‘faggots’ and ‘black monkeys’, and really, both Mabel and Wendy seemed this close to crossing the street and punching the guy in the face, when Evanescence lifted her head.

“You fugly!” she shouted, frowning and shaking out her hand. “Daddies are beautiful, you fugly man!”

Baffled, the man shut up and walked away.

Dipper blinked a few times, watching the man’s retreating back. Only after he felt a tug on his trousers did he look down where his sister, Wendy and Bill were all kneeling on the ground around little Evie.

“That was very brave,” Bill was saying, and Wendy nodded. Mabel visibly tried to keep herself from hollering with laughter, and her cheeks bulged from the effort. “But we can all protect ourselves. That man’s words can only hurt us if we let them – he’s the one with the wrong, poisonous words in his head, and I pity him for it.” He obviously wanted to say more, but bit it back.

“And where did you get the word ‘fugly’ from?” Wendy asked grinning.

“School,” Evanescence answered.

“You shouldn’t call people ‘fugly’, or anything else hurtful. But I suppose that man deserved it,” Bill joined Wendy’s laughter as he stroked his daughter’s hand in an affectionate gesture.

“Okay,” the girl said and held out her arms to Bill, so he could lift her up again. “Daddy okay?”

“Yeah, I’m fine.”

“No. Daddy okay?”

Dipper froze, when all eyes turned on him.

“Oh,” he coughed, realizing he was meant with ‘daddy’. “I’m okay.”

“Okay.”

They parted from Mabel and Wendy then, so he and Bill could show the girl the Gravity Falls library. Dipper itched for some new murder mystery novels, maybe a physics book, and he always looked in the shelf for old books one could take home or else they’d get thrown away. He knew Bill didn’t read recreationally – he mostly drew from the internet as a source any time he didn’t know something. And Bill knew _a lot_ already, and what he didn’t know he picked up uncannily fast – like new languages. Dipper caught him watching a Russian TV station once, murmuring to himself.

Dipper hesitated every few shelves as he quietly led them through row after row, explaining the layout and telling some anecdotes about the building’s history, and some adventures he and his sister got up to in here. As the topics shifted, he watched both Bill’s and Evie’s faces closely, but he observed no change – no brightening, no yawns, nothing. His voice started to waver.

After a while they’d drifted into the science section, where he wanted to browse for astronomy books that went more in-depth about photoelectron spectroscopy. He picked some books to look at more closely, catching his breath as he immersed himself in the familiar terminology, and he could hear Bill murmur to Evie about what was in the books. She was quiet, but when he looked at her, her eyes were big and bright.

“Do you like science?” he asked and squatted to show her the book in his hands. “This one is about studying light. Did you know there are all kinds of light, and white light like sunlight actually is made out of several kinds of light?”

Her eyes, impossibly, went even bigger. Dipper already started to worry he’d overstrained her capacity to absorb information, when she traced a finger along the colored lines and angles of a simplified model of X-ray photoelectron diffraction.

“Beautiful,” she whispered, and for the first time she met Dipper’s gaze for longer than just a split second. She still didn’t keep up the connection for longer than a few moments, but somehow it felt significant to Dipper.

Maybe this was how Bill felt, when he looked at his daughter. She was something special, and though Bill said he didn’t feel love the way Dipper did … This was just as profound and deep.

▲▼▲

They could live with the illusion that everything was normal and alright for a while. They had a home and a surprisingly stable relationship, but Dipper could feel that Bill was making an effort. Romance didn’t come easy to him, and neither did parenting. He was good at it, the way Dipper had been good at shooting people. He could do it. He was qualified, and he’d do it if he had to. But he didn’t actually like doing it.

Love was the crucial step, and as much as Bill denied having emotions that could compare to Dipper’s or anyone else’s for that matter, what he felt for his patchwork family was his kind of love. It might be possessive and terribly conditional. It was fickle, and it didn’t prevent him from hurting those he loved. Like with their passion, they talked in different languages. Dipper’s affection was expressed in cheek-kisses, strokes and smiles. Bill allowed those, of course, but he rarely initiated an evening of cuddling under the blankets. His kind of affection was implicit, in the way Evanescence’s utterance sometimes only made sense after you put a lot of thought into them.

“No breakfast,” she’d say, because she’d seen Grunkle Stan use the last of the milk, and without it she couldn’t eat her cereals. Which didn’t mean no one could eat any breakfast – they’d just go out or have something else that didn’t need milk. But in her logic no milk meant no breakfast.

So when Bill said “You’re mine” he actually meant “You belong with me”, which also meant “I belong with you,” and “I need you”, which also meant “You mean a lot to me”, which translated into “I love you.” But to someone who didn’t speak Bill-ish it sounded cruel and even abusive. Dipper thought he understood him, and his way of showing affection and making an effort, but even to him it was often difficult to decrypt his meaning.

Just like he struggled with Bill’s complicated non-dominance system in bed.

“I can’t.”

“Yes, you can,” Bill insisted, pointedly looking at the box that hid that atrocious thing that made Dipper blush horribly whenever he thought about it. And he was thinking about it right now.

“Yeah, I mean I can, like, I’m _able_ to, but …”

“Moral inhibitions?”

Dipper whined. Earlier they fought about what the concept of moral and honor was worth. Of course Bill didn’t believe that morals were useful, and Dipper argued that they didn’t need to be useful to be _right_. Suffice to say they had to agree on not agreeing. Which led to this tie on a whole another level.

Dipper had suggested releasing the tension that had built during their argument with a round of mind-blowingly satisfying sex – but Bill refused to do use anything but his hands and mouth, and even that only in reciprocation. He wanted Dipper to use The Thing, first.

“I don’t know how to do it,” Dipper protested weakly.

“I’ll show you. First times for everything, right?”

“But it’s not the same, I can’t …” He took a deep breath. “I don’t want to.”

Bill laughed and flopped on the bed, suggestively spreading all of his limbs.

“Come on, don’t tell me you never thought about it. With anyone. Never wanted to get between a pretty girl’s legs?”

“You know I’m gay,” Dipper grumbled, shifting at the sight of Bill rolling lasciviously around on the bed.

“Yeah, but maybe at some point you didn’t know.” Bill arched his back and gave him a sultry look. “You’re such a bad liar, Pines.”

Shuddering, Dipper fought the weird melding of memories when Bill had called him that name in entirely different contexts, and the excitement he was feeling.

“Fine,” he coughed, pushing away Bill’s foot which had tried to wriggle between Dipper’s legs. “We’ll try … What the hell … But if I don’t like it, you shut up about it.”

“Sure,” Bill laughed.

“I hate you.”

“Whatever.”

They started with something familiar, and Dipper soon forgot all tenseness against the hot, smooth suction of Bill’s mouth on his lips and skin. The bed was soft underneath, but Bill was more interesting, so he flipped them around and reveled in the pliant inertia of his partner’s limbs.

“You really want this, hm?” he teased him, watching the last bit of gold disappear in Bill’s eye.

Rearranging them until Dipper was safely tucked between Bill’s legs was as effortless as gliding together for the thousandth time. Their established dance was not interrupted by the reversal of roles, because Bill made the same soft sounds when Dipper pulled him closer and he asked the same gentle, reassuring questions that Dipper answered with the same quiet enthusiasm of kisses, shudders and indrawn breath.

“Is this good?” he would ask and rake his nails down Dipper’s back, not enough to draw blood, but enough to sting.

The insides of Bill’s thighs were wonderfully soft against Dipper’s flanks, and though he’d been on top more than a handful times by now, the openness in Bill’s eyes was just as breathtaking as the first time.

The difference lay in the initially clumsy intrusion of something that was decidedly not Bill, and the unfamiliar weight of it. Still, the pleasure was the same, and Dipper was not unfamiliar with what was to be done. If anything, it was Bill who squirmed in uncertain anticipation, though soon his mouth fell open, inviting Dipper’s tongue in a softer mirroring of their joining.

“Shh,” Dipper soothed him, placing one hand on Bill’s trembling flank as he started to thrust.

After a while he began to feel the strain of his bent-over position, but Dipper was reluctant to shift since it provided him with a steady current of friction and pleasure and seemed to suit Bill just as well. As if feeling his conflict, Bill started to shift his hips and moved against him in waves of supple muscle and skin. The added momentum made them both moan.

“So good,” it slipped out of Dipper’s mouth, and he stilled for a moment, but Bill writhed from the praise, making him move again.

From then on it seemed as if he couldn’t shut up – Dipper coaxed trembles and groans from his partner with his words, riding his own high with every shift of their hips.

“You look so beautiful like this, just for me. Your eyes are all black now, did you know? And I can feel your heart beat, like this, it surrounds me. Do you feel mine too?”

Sensing the urgency in his partner Dipper sped up slightly, chasing his own frissons of pleasure and amplifying Bill’s by gently stroking his erection. Somehow, his free hand found itself buried in the short remainders of curls on the back of Bill’s head, and he reacted beautifully, bending backwards into a taut arc.

Bill was completely silent as he came, and tenser than steel. Still, Dipper had never seen anything more wonderful.

Pressing comforting kisses to Bill’s temple and cheeks he waited until his lover started breathing again.

“Alright?” Dipper asked.

“Yeah,” Bill chuckled, eyes drooping closed. “More than fucking alright. That was _divine_.”

“Glad to have been of assistance.”

“So …” Bill coyly traced a finger down Dipper’s back. “Did you like it? Do you think we can do this again?”

Dipper hesitated for a few moments, watching the rise and fall of Bill’s chest as he caught his breath. He hadn’t come himself, but it had seemed secondary to everything else. He’d liked being this in control, and obviously Bill liked it too.

“Okay. Why not.”

“Good. Now get on your back, I need to say thank you.”

Well, Dipper wasn’t going to complain if this was Bill’s way of showing his gratitude. But maybe he should have been more concerned about how much Bill’s entire logic was centered on sex. Combined with his view on the worth of his body it was bound to lead to some sort of escalation – and, predictably, it didn’t take long after that night for a confrontation to occur.

He stumbled upon Bill one afternoon in the basement, quiet music providing a steady beat that echoed strangely in the unfurnished depths of the room. In the flickering light of decades old lightbulbs Bill looked like a spirit from another dimension, entranced in his exercise.

“What are you doing?” Dipper asked, watching with a frown and a blush how Bill twisted and spun around one of the vertical poles they sometimes used in training.

“You know, your mother got me thinking,” Bill mused, barely out of breath despite being in the middle of some insane contortion act.

“That doesn’t sound good.”

“My plans need more time, and in the meantime I need something to do, and earn some money besides.”

“Plans?” Dipper echoed, alarmed.

“I could dance,” Bill continued, ignoring him. “There’s this club just outside of town, and they’re hiring.”

“Please tell me you don’t mean that dingy strip club.”

“They have a new owner. And it’s not a whorehouse.” Bill leaned against the pole, shrugging. “Even if, I don’t care.”

“I care,” Dipper protested.

“Come on, don’t tell me we couldn’t use some cash. At least until I can implement my other means of money acquisition.”

“Okay,” Dipper said slowly, crossing his arms. “What would you need more money for anyway? And what plans?”

“Oh, just world domination.”

“That’s not funny. You’re still on the FBI’s most wanted list!”

“Calm down, I was joking. Mostly.”

“Bill …”

He shrugged and continued his impossible looking stretches and bends. Dipper walked around his boyfriend, watching the taut arches and smooth movements with sweaty hands curled into shaking fists. His boyfriend, who playfully displayed his best side to make him blush.

His boyfriend, who also was one of the smartest people Dipper had ever met, and he considered _himself_ a near-genius. So he should have known it would be futile to make Bill give up this sudden, strange venture to earn money.

“There are other things you could do,” he’d argued later, when they had the exact same conversation in the kitchen, over burnt Stancakes. He told Bill they didn’t need the money – that whatever Bill thought he needed it for, Dipper could help, they could ask his parents, anything. He told him he didn’t like it that Bill was basically selling his body for money at night between pillows and sheets after a round of passionate lovemaking. But nothing dissuaded him.

“I’ve done it before, you know. It’s fun, actually.”

“I just don’t understand what you need the money for. If you said you wanted to dance, well, fine. If you think it’s fun, good. But why do it for the money?” And why did he have to dance at a shady club of all places? But Dipper didn’t voice that one, smashed the thought into the button of the bedside lamp. He felt this was going to be a long discussion, and he’d rather see his partner’s face.

“I’m used to a few luxuries,” Bill merely said once Dipper had crashed back into bed, shrugging again. He did that a lot lately.

“Are you saying I haven’t properly taken care of you, delicate flower?” Dipper laughed, though it was a bit strained.

“Come on, you basically live off of your savings and whatever your Grunkle sees fit for you to get as a measly wage for working in that gift shop. You didn’t save up that much, and Stan is really, really greedy.” Bill hesitated. “I mean, I admire his conman skills, I do. But he really should pay you more.”

“Then just tell me what you need money for.”

“I don’t want to ask for money, alright? I’ve always had and earned my own money. I’m used to having obscene amounts of virtual cash in my virtual pockets, and I don’t like basically living off of you, on the condition of being your boyfriend.”

Dipper blinked.

“So you feel like I’m paying you to be my boyfriend?”

“No, of course not. I’m just comfortable with being dependent. I’ve been trying to siphon off insubstantial amounts of money off numerous accounts I’ve got offshore, but the FBI is keeping a tight lid on all of them. Not even my hacking skills can get the money out without them knowing, and I don’t want to call in favors for this.”

“How much money are we speaking of?” Dipper asked.

“In all? Jeez, let me think …” Bill held up a few fingers, murmuring and scratching his head. “Maybe two hundred million? Three hundred? I really don’t know. I’ve got it stretched over, like, fifty accounts in almost as many countries, and if you count the real estate investments as well … Maybe eight hundred million?”

Dipper’s jaw dropped.

“You’re almost a billionaire!”

“Meh. Who’s counting, right?” His eyes glazed over for a moment. “Oh wait, then there are the trust funds I opened in Evie’s name. I got a couple millions in those. And the jewels in the strongbox. Oh, and the gold. Lots, and lots of gold. How much do you wager that’s worth?”

“And the FBI’s got all of it?”

“I think I buried some of the gold in the backyard of the New Mexico house, but maybe I dug that up when … No, I think it’s still there.”

“You could get that then, and make money for whatever you need it for,” Dipper said hopefully.

“No, it would be suspicious if that amount of gold suddenly flooded the market. And I want that job – my moves are getting rusty.”

Wondering just how much gold was buried in that backyard – and feeling a bit like an adventurer looking for a great treasure – Dipper still tried to convince Bill not to go dancing at that awful club and to dig up the gold instead. Doing that was like talking a dragon out of giving up some of its hoard, but in the end Bill agreed set some plan or another into motion so they could slowly sell off bits of the gold to make money. He even agreed to look for a different job, if he really wanted one so badly.

Dipper should have known him as a liar. But such was the crux with lovers – trust and freedom and indifference and blindness were interchangeable, when already so much was being shared.

▲▼▲

There was something tempting about the darkness, the smoke, the deafening loudness of the music, and the teasing flashes of light piercing through one’s senses like shots of pure lightning. Like the lure of alcohol, many people fell for those honey traps of promising oblivion, and though the _Licorice Cave_ was just another one of those traps, it did its job pretty well. Dipper could see Bill fit among them, not as a sinner caught in the claws of the devil, but as the devil himself, snaring and singing a voiceless siren’s song that made men kneel before him, begging for a mere glimpse of the divine.

Here his magic worked best. These were his hunting grounds.

The patrons remained anonymous in their shadowed booths, and the lit stage revealed only silken curtains, sometimes ruffled as if by an intangible breeze, but otherwise still like the depths of the oceans. At the moment the music was like a deep, low hum in the background, and though the air was hot and heavy with smoke, Dipper felt rather soothed by the environment. Only sheer will kept him from getting entranced by the scents and dark warmth surrounding him.

A tall, pretty blonde came and asked him what he’d like with a sultry wink.

“I’m looking for my boyfriend,” he said, giving her a small smile.

“Oh. Um … Is he backstage?”

“Think so. He’s a dancer. I don’t know what name he gave you, but he’s about this tall,” he held a hand up to about his eye-height, “dark skin, one black and one golden eye. Curly hair.”

The blonde wrinkled her nose.

“We have a dancer that fits your description, but you said _boy_ friend. We only have girls here.”

“Ah,” Dipper shrugged. “Sometimes he’s a girl.”

“Sorry, but I can’t just take you backstage. I need to ask Bailey first, to confirm who you are,” the blonde said apologetically. “Lots of people pretend to be a dancer’s boyfriend, but we need to make sure, you know? It’s a security thing.”

“Sure,” he said, giving her another smile, and she stalked off on her impossibly high heeled shoes.

“Bailey,” Dipper murmured, tapping his toes thoughtfully. It was a good name, if a bit too close to home. But then, the FBI was full of hetero- and cisnormative bastards. They’d never get the idea that one of their most wanted men could sometimes be a woman, even if Bill told them to their faces. Denial and phobias sometimes worked that way, and in this instance Bill was probably fully aware of his advantage, and used it unashamedly to basically become invisible.

On the stage, three dancers emerged from the swathes of glittering silk, undulating with the rhythm of the changing music. The base deliciously vibrated through Dipper’s bones, and he idly watched the women step off the stage to continue their dance on select tables. Hands always seemed to miraculously miss them, but they smoothly collected the money thrown at them.

“Enjoying the show?”

Dipper stiffened, but remained facing the stage and the girls.

“Hello, _Bailey_ ,” he said, emphasizing the name.

Bill’s familiar, sharp and bright laugh pierced through the dim room, turning a few heads. Feeling a burning need to show them that Bill wasn’t theirs, Dipper held out an arm. Silently, like they’d done this a thousand times, Bill stepped into his reach and snuggled into Dipper’s side.

“I knew you’d find me,” he whispered, his hot breath teasing Dipper’s ear.

“I thought you promised not to come work here,” Dipper replied smoothly, putting some pressure on the shoulders his arm was curled around.

“Just doing what’s necessary,” Bill chuckled, unperturbed.

“Necessary? For whom?”

“Not for whom. For what.”

“Fine, for what then?”

Bill shifted a bit and gave Dipper a soft kiss on the cheek.

“Everything I do is for those I love.”

Then he slipped out from under Dipper’s arm and disappeared into the smoky darkness.

▲▼▲


End file.
